


About the Draft Game

by neutrondecay



Series: Fic from the Draft Game [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossover, Draft Game, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 06:49:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8361751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutrondecay/pseuds/neutrondecay
Summary: Not a story at all; this is a brief explanation of a collaborative prompt- and fic-writing game played on RPGnet. I'm putting it up here in advance of my actual fic because the first few that I've got lined up were written as part of this game.The short version: players take turns to draft characters, identities, and other elements from popular fictional multiverses, to create a new setting with new but derivative characters. Sometimes the players write enough supporting text that it's a coherent fic. Sometimes they write enough between them that it's a whole new sprawling multiverse.





	

# The Draft Game

## (It doesn't have any more formal name than that.)

This isn't a story. It's an explanation of where some of my stories have come from. It's not necessary to read this to enjoy the stories, but if you're wondering why some of them have such sprawling casts, and some of them have odd combinations like 'Lois Lane is Hawkeye' (not a real example, as far as I know), then this is the answer.

I'm a member of [RPGnet](https://forum.rpg.net/), a discussion forum primarily dedicated to pen-and-paper roleplaying games. Alongside the discussion of those and other games, it has a thriving private board called 'Other Media' which turns out a great deal of discussion of films, novels, comic books, TV shows, and, yes, fanfic. It also produces a fair bit of fanfic, by means of this idiosyncratic game.

The exact rules vary from game to game, but the key idea is this: we agree to play with some specific shared-world setting, such as the DC Universe or Marvel's Multiverse (the two commonest choices), and we take turns to pick characters from it and make them our own. And generally, we try to write fic about them, because the implicit premise is that we're all writing, or at least pitching, new comic books.

Typically, we have seven rounds of picking heroes, then one round of team names, one round of villains, and one round for miscellaneous extras. And just as typically, in each round (except team name) we're allowed to combine two existing characters' names and identities to make our new characters. Usually this means a civilian identity and a hero/villain identity ('Stephen Strange is Doctor Doom!') but it could be someone using a second civilian name as an alias, or two epithets for the same otherwise nameless character. And once one person has chosen a character element, that element is off-limits to the other players. (But if Alfred Pennyworth is the Penguin, Oswald C Cobblepot can still be picked with a different alias, for example.) There's no requirement that your hero picks are heroes in the original setting, and vice versa. The third thing that's often the case is that all the resulting stories take place in a developing new alternative universe - so each writer can mention other writers' plot and setting elements, as long as they don't utterly derail the other players' stories. Negotiated crossovers are fairly common.

Those rules do get varied, though, depending on the specific game. A game that is 'hybrid' uses more than one source universe (usually Marvel and DC) which is what gets us picks like 'Steve Rogers is Superman'. A game that is 'new multiverse' has a set number of rounds, but in each round you may pick any two setting elements - but you may _not_ mash up two different things into a new thing. And in new multiverse drafts, each player's work is its own standalone setting. You're still allowed to change the context, so the characters can be adapted to their new setting - Marvel's published _1602_ series was a bit like this.

So that's where these odd little fics are going to be coming from. Except as noted (and with permission), all the writing is mine, but it's only fair to credit the wild and wonderful denizens of the RPGnet Other Media board for inspiring, prompting, and encouraging its creation.


End file.
